It's not had any real use yet but my impression so far is that you have no idea you're riding a belt drive – it feels just like a normal bike, only quieter. Which really is as good as you're going to get.

We can now offer Gates drive for Rohloff, Alfine or singlespeed/fixed.

Greg – the custom seat tube cost was actually £175 (HFTH undercharged you and you need to go back and see them). Nicolai revised their custom charges in the Autumn – it's now £300 where a change of geometry is required and £175 for tubing/gusset/headtube type changes where the geometry doesn't change.

I enjoyed two winters in Alberta and they use grit and not salt on the snowy and icy roads.

When the snow and ice melts in the spring they come along with road sweepers and collect all of the grit which by this time is lining the gutters and hard shoulders. They can then reuse the grit next winter.

Seems a much better way of doing business if you ask me.

That's the Ski resort approach as well. Interesting thread this – i've wondered the same thing.

But anyway, no matter. I am VERY interested to hear how proximity to the coast affects rainwater salinity. Does it matter which way the wind blows/where the prevailing wind comes from?

This seems completely concievable to me. Some years back I remember cards being covered in sand after a rainstorm. Supposedly it was saharan sand that had been picked up by weird weather patterns. A big storm at sea could concievably through a lot of salt water into the air. More of this would fall closer to the coast.

If you're going to buy a sub i'd highly recommend looking at one of the BK range.

http://www.bkelec.com/HiFi/Sub_Woofers.htm

Fantastic value for money and very well built (they were the manufacturers of REL subs for years)

I'd have a set as well. Nice work.

I've got a Humax Freesat PVR. I think they are probably the best of anything available but the User Interfaces are still pony and the remote is terrible – they are to Tivo what the iPod is to an early Creative MP3 players.

We've a few FR's left selling at a big discount but the Helius CC is more in line with your spec – 140mm front/130mm rear. Check out our site – we're open to reasonable offers on the discounted frames.

http://www.nicolai-uk.com

Bear – can't find out how to PM you. Mail me at simon @ nicolai-uk.com

Keston is a condensing boiler but not a combi that vents straight out of the wall it's mounted on so no unusual flue. It's had a new logic board and a new fan (a large, expensive part) in the last five years. The replacement fan failed within 12 months of being fitted and whilst Keston were happy to replace the part again they wanted us to pay the labour!.

What's best about Keston is that almost most plumbers won't touch them and they themselves "only do warranty work". When we have paid for them to service it something has usually failed within a couple of months. We've decided we're doing nothing to it now until it fails when we'll replace (hence wanting to line someone up to do it).

</RANT>

Bear – we're in Brixton. A friend paid that a couple of years back for a small combi in a flat after getting a few quotes and we've been quoted about the same. The boiler in our current place is a Keston (Advice – never, ever, buy a Keston boiler) and it's been nothing but trouble since we moved in.

Standard quote in (South) London appears to be about £3k for a boiler, fitted. I'd welcome a recommendation of someone who'll do a good job for a better price – that looks like about 2k labour to me and i don't believe it's that big a job.

I remember picking up one of those little books they have on the counter in book shops years ago – something along the lines of 'how to get rich'. I flicked through a few random pages but one always stuck with me: "Never buy a boat"

Theres a lot of good advice above along the lines of 'living within your means' which is about right. I'd add that when you do buy anything buy the best you can possibly afford – "Buy cheap, buy twice" – quality lasts.

You pays your money, takes your choice. The Sonos and Squeezebox both have their advocates but the Sonos looks expensive to me for what it is – a ZP90 to connect to your own amp is c£280. The equivalent Squeezbox (the receiver) is £110. For £280 you could get the new Squeezebox Touch which has a colour touchscreen. In rooms where you don't want an amplifer there are very fine active speakers available now to add to a SB Touch (where you would use an amplified Zoneplayer.

I think both the Sonos and SB controllers are overpriced but the older Sonos controller is still about £80 more than the Squeezebox controller. As i said, personally I'd go for an iPod touch over either of them for sub £150 (plus it does many other things as well).

Look at both – have a look at the sites (and their forums).

I've used a Sonos for a while and found the Mk1 remote very 'laggy' in use. I'd heard great things about it but wasn't actually very disappointed when i finally got to use it. The touch wheel also seemed very flaky.

You should look at Logitech Squeezeboxes. You can achieve the same as Sonos for less money and get a far more flexible system as well (not least that you can continue to use whatever HiFi kit you've already got rather than using Sonos integrated amplifiers). I've had Squeezeboxes at home for years and the software and hardware has got steadily better. The new Squeezbox 'Touch' looks very cool – full colour touchscreen player that will display album art.

Personally I'd avoid the Squeezebox 'controller' and buy an iPod touch and download the iPeng contoller app (cheaper as well). You can then combine it with either Squeezebox receivers or Touches in each room depending on whether you want a display. You can play music synced across different rooms or different music in each room.

We've also have an iMac (that acts as the server for the Squeezeboxes) that i use with my iPhone as an iTunes remote and it works really well but the lack of 'on the fly' playlists on the mac is really limiting – Squeezebox has the option 'add to end of playlist', 'add to playlist to play next' as well as 'clear current playlist and play this song'.

The Helius frames are all super stiff. We offer 12mm as an option but you won't notice any flex without but it's a no cost option if you want it.

The current models are very rarely discounted at all so that Pixmania price is pretty good. Dixons stores at Airports claim to have VAT free prices even if you're only travelling in Europe and usually have Macbooks but I've never checked the spec to be sure they're current stock.

It's always interesting how long a bad rep will last. I wouldn't touch Rock Shox forks for years but pretty much everything they've produced since the first Pikes has been top notch.

Endura's quality has been questionable at times but the finishing on all the kit I've seen from them in the last year has been top notch.

Thule A frame racks. Rearward facing bike with crud catcher on (so mudguard facing front of car). Possibly wasn't wheel tied at the front/may have ripped out. I figure the lift off the mudguard lifted the bike right up and out of the A Frame. it then pivoted round the headtube and the rear wheel caught on the saddle of the other bike on the roof.

Never had a problem in many thousands of miles with Thule fork clamp racks and would happily use them again. We have a van now but it's more for security than anything else – it's nice not to worry they whole time you're in a motorway service station.

Nylon strap rear racks should be illegal. Very difficult to fix to most cars with soft plastic bumpers. Why anyone skimps on a car carrier when they've got a few grands worth of bikes on the back is beyond me.

I think they all do the same job but each have their own quirks. I used Anquet for a while and later switched to Tracklogs which I do prefer but theres not a huge difference.

Tracklogs focus on, you guessed it, Tracklogs rather than routes is good but Anquet was very strong on stitching together different sections of track into a single route.

Sorry – I’ve got a tube in there already and have it up to about 50psi. I’ll try adding more air….

Ok, at just over 80 it popped into place…and immediately lost all it’s air. suspect the tube was cut at the valve. Will have a look tomorrow – getting shouted at to get ready to go out.

I’ve used Rohloff, cheap sram and expensive KMC and the cheap Srams are as good as anything – some of the more expensive chains might have an advantage on conventional set ups but on the Rohloff they’re no advantage

What do you class as cheap?

You can pick up a Laserjet 4000 or 4100 on eBay for £85 with a low page count and 6 month warranty (or much less without). They’re designed to run 50k plus pages per month for years and a £25 toner cartridge will do 6000 pages.